Hard News: Press Play > Budget
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Lucy Stewart, in reply to
Given how the bonus is paid, it's unlikely that it'll take effect until the end of this tax year - 31 March 2013. At the very earliest it won't take effect until Monday, realistically 1 June, and that would be law-making at its most incredibly rapid: a speed not normally associated with something so trivial.
The change has been signalled, but because it's got tax implications and a bunch of other things tied in I would be stunned if it kicks in earlier than the end of this tax year. It's only a saving of a few million dollars, really not worth the out-of-cycle changes to how IRD handles student loan repayment calculations.We're expecting it to kick in April next year - that's when the shortened repayment holidays for people on OE also kick in - and going to try and sock away as much as we can to take advantage of it. Won't make more than a couple of thousand dollars' difference in the scheme of things, but that's not nothing.
Re: the "borrow to pay off and make money on the difference" scheme - I've engaged in a version of it, I suppose, when I started pulling the living costs loan about six months before I actually needed it (when I was still subsisting on a combination of parental support and part-time work) to build up some rainy-day savings. I think that was before the interest-free thing started; it was worth doing when I still had two or three years as a student ahead of me, essentially a free loan of a sum of money that wouldn't be hard to repay when I was working full-time but had much more utility when I was living off a lot less.
I heard of quite a few people doing that through their whole time at uni - this was when interest rates made it worthwhile - but it was only doable if your parents or a ridiculously lucrative part-time job made you able to afford your living costs. That's not a lot of people. The $1K costs allowance wasn't really rortable in the same way because you had to submit receipts for everything you bought. That didn't mean that there wasn't some smart bargaining of costs allowances as cash advances, but that's about as far as you can go with it. In the larger scheme of things these are all *very* minor shufflings-about - don't think there's anything you could do to stop them without major repercussions to other users (or, really, any need to.)
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
Matthew, I was being heavily sarcastic. This RONS thing of all the evil things this Govt. has done, is the most glaringly stupid and cynical.
Ah, sorry. I missed the sarcasm.
Yes, RODS is totally economically-crippling, because it's costing so fucking much and won't even create very many jobs in the near term which might be of benefit in trying to drag the country out of recession. -
merc,
Thank you for your reply Matthew. Sarcasm is not my usual thing, but here it is because yes, this Govt's unusual lack of intelligence existent within a moral vacuum is there for all to see, if they choose to.
Simply, for me witnessing,
1. tax cuts for the upper end
2. GST increases for the lower end to pay for above
3. RONS, 14 billion cost?
4. asset sales, 5 billion one-off revenue? (currently delivering 18% return on equity PA).
No money for aged care workers, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10808911What wankery is this?
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
What wankery is this?
You can add the $400m farm subsidy marketed as an irrigation plan.
because it’s costing so fucking much and won’t even create very many jobs in the near term which might be of benefit in trying to drag the country out of recession.
It’s called pork barrel politics. Japan’s Roads to Nowhere, the Gravina Island Bridge, NASA’s cost overruns and malfunctions, you name it.
Who's the economist who blew the whistle on Think Big? It certainly wasn't Derek Quigley.
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merc, in reply to
I think quite naturally, organically even, things have progressively got more and more sophisticated politically, over time, definitely since WW2.
These things have evolved as Govt. attempts to make revenue over and above tax levels that will still engender votes.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10808873
And,
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10808870
!2 million for the memorial (England), not enough money to send the living to the opening.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10808877
An Auckland Council architect?
And,
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10808890
No one I know in business expects one red cent from the Govt to work anyway, too removed.
And,
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10808910
I was also looking for an article on funding for mental health care for teens in Auckland, could not find it again. It exemplifies the money - marketing model well.This is the system we have today. I would really like to know what expectations are held for MP's, especially internally. I don't think the current system is going to change for at least another 3 generations. It is not yet at peak.
Sadly nations (that old term) don't really reboot until after war. Meantime we are going to be provided with marketing as policy, tax and spend and borrow, tinkering round the edges and duopolistic leadership.
I can now retire from all political commentary ;-) And concentrate on life, those politicians and their cohorts are oxygen thieves! -
Ian Dalziel, in reply to
...those politicians and their cohorts are oxygen thieves!
...and a waste of carbon!
No wonder they don't want a tax on it.... -
merc, in reply to
No wonder they don't want a tax on it....
But creating a carbon credit stock would work for them? The cynical might say that taxation is not providing enough for the cost of re-election.
Our current post WW2 system is both physically AND morally bankrupt. -
DexterX, in reply to
marketing as policy, tax and spend and borrow, tinkering round the edges and duopolistic leadership.
Right on the money.
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Islander, in reply to
What politicians – mainly male – dont factor in is
females in the middleclass still control family money-
and, are we going to move it into – appropriate family (old age) places?
Yes.
Are we going to be bypassing any fukking government set up?
Yes.
Are we aware that shits know about this?
Yes.
Do we have other plans.
O yes!
Die! you other bastards! -
merc,
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Presently - It really doesn't matter what the budget is or what the forecasts are, the size of the gaps between forecasts, the budget and reality - this govt is awfully bad at being the government.
The downsizing of teachers - increase in class size - spending 20 million to save 43 million - as if - that lack of allowanc/ loans for people wanting to do Masters or Phds, the changes to employment law where collective bargaining doesn’t have to end in a collective agreement blah, blah – it just goes on and on - ontop fo asset sales etc - is there nothing they can't phuck up.
I heard John Key telling someone - via the medium of radio - that he had been REAL ISTIC about any expectation he had created on the Pike River Recovery. He really emphasised and laboured the words so much so that it sounded like.
REAL IZ DICK
A few days before, Monday I think, I heard Mr Key talking to Marcus Lush and suggesting that NZ's crisis - likely present of future couldn't tell – the lack of Money to pay AGed Care Workers a living wage could be solved by importing nurses from the Philippines to work in Rest Homes.
This suggested approach by Key is disloyalty to the NZ Workers and Tax Payers (reaching parity with the Lange Douglas Labour Govt) and doesn’t really address the fundamentals of the problem – looking to solve a problem by abusing and taking advantage of someone else while putting the other group of people on the scrap heap is not a solution..
Realistically - I fink I could do his job better than him and cheaper – he REALLY IZ A (insert expletive of choice).
The message is pretty clear - wanting a piece of Key and Nationals brighter future – and to earn wages on par with OZ – go live there.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
A few days before, Monday I think, I heard Mr Key talking to Marcus Lush and suggesting that NZ's crisis - likely present of future couldn't tell – the lack of Money to pay Rest Home Workers a living wage could be solved by importing nurses from the Philippines to work in Rest Homes.
As if we aren't already plundering the 3rd world to care for our elderly.
From the two Filipina rest home workers I know of who decided to return home rather than stay on in shaky Chch, I suspect that NZ's a borderline prospect anyway. -
Lucy Stewart, in reply to
As if we aren’t already plundering the 3rd world to care for our elderly.
From the two Filipina rest home workers I know of who decided to return home rather than stay on in shaky Chch, I suspect that NZ’s a borderline prospect anyway.For immigrants not intending to stay in NZ (or substitute America, Britain, large cities in China, etc) the fundamental bargain has always been that they'll put up with low pay and dubious living conditions if and only if the pay is sufficient to improve their standard of living or their family's standard of living back home. It relies on a significant gap in pay and living standards between the two places. Once third-world standards of living rise - and if we keep going the way we're going for the working poor - that bargain no longer holds.
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A couple of years ago, when our unemployment rates began to rise, many migrants who hadn't yet got residency were sent home. Large numbers of these people worked in residential care. The idea was that any NZer registering as unemployed could instantly be reemployed as a carer. A couple of years on what has happened?
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Residential care issue hinged on fractured family unit reminds of Russian saying:
"love for family is live 1000km away" -
In light of the Treasury's non-scrutiny of the Roads of National Significance, and its (mis)handling of SCF and the deposit guarantee scheme, it has announced an official rebrand.
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Sacha, in reply to
doubleplusgood
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
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chris, in reply to
That's Awce!
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merc,
...maybe comes with a hole in the bottom.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Through the looking glass...
...it has announced an official rebrand.
Yeah verily - Not MiniPlenty but PIM
- meet the new Primary Industries Ministry ...The new Primary Industries Ministry has been accused of squandering taxpayers' cash with a plan to spend $900,000 on its new brand.
(PrimInMin?) Money crisis! What money crisis?
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merc,
Once, I knocked off design to make logos, now I knock off advertising to make art.
Read somewhere on the intertubes.
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
(PrimInMin?) Money crisis! What money crisis?
Add to that a multi-million dollar road funding discrepancy dug up by Generation Zero (the people who commuted in their underwear in protest earlier this week).
I've contacted a GenZero spokesman and Clive Mathew-Wilson of the Dog & Lemon Guide about my Holiday Highways poster, and I've just had an acknowledgement.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
Re. the Miniplenty mug - will you be doing a visual size comparison with the "regular cup", or would that be giving the game away?
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
Re. the Miniplenty mug – will you be doing a visual size comparison with the “regular cup”, or would that be giving the game away?
MiniPlenty cites commercial sensitivity.
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